July 3, 2015

Given the vastness of space, it may only be a matter of time before we make contact with intelligent extraterrestrials. But how might an alien civilization react to such a monumental meet-and-greet, and can we possibly know their intentions? Here's what we might expect.

Alien civilizations will most assuredly be like snowflakes: no two will be the same. Each will differ according to an array of factors, including their mode of existence, age, history, developmental stage, and level of technological development. That said, advanced civilizations may have a lot in common as they adapt to similar challenges; we all share the same Universe, after all.

We've obviously never interacted with an alien civilization, so we have virtually no data to go by. Predicting alien intentions is thus a very precarious prospect — but we do have ourselves to consider as a potential model, both in terms of our current situation and where we might be headed as a species in the future.

July 1, 2015

In a medical first, a woman has given birth to a healthy baby boy from a transplant of her own frozen ovarian tissue preserved when she was just 13-years-old. It's a remarkable breakthrough that's poised to benefit young people who lose their fertility because of cancer treatments.

As reported in The Telegraph, the unnamed 28-year-old woman, who suffers from sickle-cell anemia, had to have her ovary tissue surgically removed prior to chemotherapy. She was only 13-years-old at the time and had never experienced menstruation, but the doctors had the sense to cryopreserve her ovarian tissue (specifically her right ovary and dozens of tissue fragments) with the hopes that it could be used to restore her fertility in the future — which, as a new study published in Human Reproduction point out, is exactly what happened.

Since the time of Darwin, evolutionary biologists have wondered why the lifespans of different species vary so significantly. A new model now suggests that the life expectancy of any given species is a function of evolutionary pressures — a conclusion that hints at the potential for powerful anti-aging interventions in humans.

The new paper, which now appears in Physical Review Letters, challenges popular conceptions about the nature of aging and why it manifests at different rates in different organisms, including species that are closely related.

By running variations of their model hundreds of thousands of times, a research team led by Yaneer Bar-Yam from the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI), in collaboration with the Harvard Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, observed that evolution favors shorter lifespans in environments where resources are scarce and when pressures to procreate are particularly intense. The simulations appeared to show that lifespans of animals — humans included — are genetically conditioned, and not the result of gradual wear-and-tear. It's a surprising result, one that gives added credence to the burgeoning paradigm known as "programmed aging." At the same time, the study shows that current efforts to develop anti-aging interventions may be based on incorrect assumptions.

The Jane Goodall Institute, in collaboration with other animal welfare groups, has successfully petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to declare a new rule under which all chimpanzees—both wild and captive—must be protected as an endangered species.

Wild chimpanzees have been listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) since 1990, so it seemed odd and inappropriate to a coalition of animal welfare organizations, including the Jane Goodall Institute, that research chimps were not granted the same consideration. According to ESA rules, captive chimps cannot be assigned separate legal status from their wild counterparts owing to their captive state. In an effort to change this, the coalition petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in 2010 to list all chimps as endangered. This instigated a formal review of the ESA and the new ruling.

We all dream of journeying (or living) among the stars. But space is a spectacularly awful place for humans, and we're not suited for life there at all. And yet, it doesn't have to be that way. Here are all the ways we'll need to re-engineer the human body, in order to make space our home.

A new study shows racehorses have gotten progressively quicker over the past 160 years, and in sprint races, especially. But given the startling number of race-related deaths each year, it's nothing to be proud of.

Several months ago, the UK approved a groundbreaking reproductive technique in which babies are created from the genetic material of three people. The US is now considering the procedure, but Congress's new spending bill will require religious experts to review a forthcoming report.

By editing a single gene, researchers from South Korea and China have engineered pigs that produce about twice the amount of muscle as normal pigs. The goal is to produce leaner meat and at higher yields, but early results show it could be a long time before this jacked-up pork appears on your dinner plate.

George Dvorsky

Canadian futurist, science writer, and ethicist, George Dvorsky has written and spoken extensively about the impacts of cutting-edge science and technology—particularly as they pertain to the improvement of human performance and experience. He is a contributing editor at io9, the Chairman of the Board at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and is the program director for the Rights of Non-Human Persons program.